1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the delivery of voice messages in wireless networks. More specifically, the present invention is directed to extracting the voice portion of a Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) message and sending the voice portion to one or more recipient wireless stations utilizing the Short Message Service (SMS) protocol to permit delivery of the message regardless of the communication capabilities of the recipient wireless stations.
2. The Relevant Technology
The popularity of all types of wireless stations, such as mobile telephones and hybrid devices such as “smart phones” that combine the functionality of mobile telephones with that of personal digital assistants (hereinafter referred to as wireless stations) is undeniable. People want or need to communicate using voice while they are mobile. At the same time, the use of text messaging is also rising such that virtually any wireless station on a 2G or 3G network can receive a Short Message Service message. While text messaging using protocols such as SMS are somewhat popular, voice is still the preferred way to communicate when using a wireless station, since using the keypad of such devices to input and send text messages can be cumbersome and time consuming. Voice messages are more convenient because they can be easily created and they take advantage of the native ability of wireless stations to receive and output audio data.
Conventional voicemail systems provide the capability for anyone to leave a voicemail message after a telephone call has failed to reach the intended recipient. Using a conventional voicemail system to deliver a voice message to the recipient, a sender typically first must dial the recipient's telephone number in an attempt to reach the recipient “live” and then fail to do so, whereupon the voicemail system intercedes to allow a voice message to be recorded. In many cases, callers hoping to be able to leave a non-intrusive voice message instead interrupt the intended recipient. While conventional voicemail systems represent a convenient adjunct to direct telephone communication between a caller and a recipient, they often do not allow voice messages to be created and sent by senders without first making an attempt to establish a live telephone conversation with the recipient.
Another technology, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), allows senders with MMS-enabled wireless stations to send multi-media messages, including voice messages, to other MMS-enabled wireless stations. However, the proliferation of MMS-compatible wireless stations has been and continues to be very slow. It is likely that MMS-compatible wireless stations will not be widely accepted by consumers until MMS users can reliably send MMS messages to a large number of potential recipients. The problem, of course, is that the large number of potential MMS recipients will not exist until MMS-compatible wireless stations have already been widely accepted by consumers. Another option for sending MMS-based voice messages involves sending the messages to a website where they can be retrieved by the recipients. While this alternative may be occasionally acceptable, the use of a web browser to retrieve a voice message is inconvenient for the recipient when he does not have access to a web browser and is cumbersome compared to the use of telephones to access voice messages.
The foregoing technologies have introduced the convenience of voice messaging to large numbers of users. However, none of these techniques allow senders to create and initiate transmission of a voice message to any selected recipient without first having attempted to place a live telephone call. Furthermore, the foregoing techniques do not allow the sender to send a voice message to a recipient, regardless of the communication capabilities of the receiving device that is used by the recipient, nor do they allow a recipient of such a message to send a voice reply back to the sender in the original audio format, regardless of the capabilities of the receiving device.